Demography Expert to Keynote U Aging Retreat

Demography Expert to Keynote U Aging Retreat

Mar 18, 2009 3:04 PM

SALT LAKE CITY - The University of Utah Center on Aging will hold its annual research retreat on Monday and Tuesday, Mar. 23-24, with a national expert from the University of California, Berkeley, giving this year's keynote address on human longevity and its implications for aging. The retreat is part one of a two-part series that will culminate in the 2009 Siciliano Forum, "Global Aging in the 21st Century," to be held October 28-29.

The retreat, open to the public, will take place in the Spencer F. and Cleone P. Eccles Health Sciences Education Building south of University of Utah Hospital. Activities get under way on Monday afternoon, March 23, with a reception and poster presentations highlighting the latest aging research by Center on Aging faculty and students. The reception and poster presentations run from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. and will give the public and researchers a chance to discuss various aspects of geriatrics research and health care.

On Tuesday morning, from 8:30-9:30, John R. Wilmoth, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Demography, Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California, Berkeley, will deliver the keynote address, "The Rise of Human Longevity and its Implications for Population Aging."

After receiving has Ph.D. in statistics and demography from Princeton University, Wilmoth spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan before joining the Berkeley faculty. His teaching has included courses on the causes and consequences of population change, demographic and statistical methods, mortality trends and global health issues, and advances in human reproductive technologies.

Most of Wilmoth's published research concerns trends and variation in levels of human mortality and longevity, including a special focus on methods of demographic estimation. He seeks to promote demographic research and teaching through the creation and maintenance of publicly accessible data resources, including the Human Mortality Database.

"We are very pleased to have Dr. Wilmoth lead off the joint Center on Aging Retreat and the upcoming Siciliano Forum," said Mark A. Supiano, M.D., director of the Center on Aging and chief of the Division of Geriatrics. "The retreat will be a great opportunity for our faculty to share their current research findings with each other and Dr. Wilmoth."

Following Wilmoth's address, from 9:45 to 11:20 a.m., the recipients of four pilot grants from the Center on Aging will discuss their projects. Topics will range from motor skills training in the elderly, male osteoporosis, auditory temporal acuity during aging, and disability trajectories among elder adults in China and Taiwan.